I have been under the knife plenty of times before too and one piece of advise:
Start taking stool softners a day or two before and strictly take it after the surgery. What nobody told me was the anesthisia slows down your bowels and then you add that to all the pain meds you will be on and that spells trouble for you later. And eat even when you don't feel like it.
I know that's not pleasant..........but trust me, just do it.
See, it's one of those things nobody wants to talk about...........but I did and I fully recommend anyone going under do it.
Besides the bowel issue the next biggest thing was the pain when the 2 nurses removed my chest tubes. Whenever I've removed CTs from a patient I'd give them some morphine to try to prevent some of the pain. These 2 nurses, actually 1 nurse and a student, came in and said "we're going to remove your chest tubes now" and proceeded to rip off the tape and start yanking the tubes out! Normally I'd pull the CT in one fluid motion but these 2 girls pulled then stopped half way and then pulled the remainder out. I let out a guttural scream and then they were gone! Man that hurt like HELL!!!
Holy what hospital was that so I can avoid it if at all possible?!
Glad you made it through the surgery just fine. I had my GB taken out about 5 yrs ago. It took me a coupke of months to be back to normal.
I was oof work the frist 2 weeks then only 4 hr days for 2 weeks. So after the 4th week I got to go back full time and I can say I was not really ready for it. I should have been off work for 4 weeks at the first then went back for a week part time. My job involved lifting and and a lot of standing and walking.
Just take it easy and drink lots of fluids and do nothing that you are not supposed to do. Did they do the surgery with the 4or 5 little cuts where they deflate the gall baldder and then take it out around your belly button? Thats how they did mine. I only had 5 little incisions.
Good luck and I hope you have a speedy recovery.